1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a component used on the image forming apparatus. The present invention also relates to a component checking method to decide whether the component is available for use with the image forming apparatus, a control program to cause a computer to execute the checking method, and storage medium to store the control program.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, image forming apparatus (printing apparatus), such as ink jet printers, have replaceably mounted on their bodies cartridge type components that accommodate consumables, such as ink and print medium (also referred to simply as “cartridges”). Such cartridges are available on the market separate from the image forming apparatus body. Since new products of the image forming apparatus are introduced into the market in a short cycle of every year or half, few improvements on their performances are made after they have been put on the market. Cartridges, on the other hand, continue to be supplied as long as the image forming apparatus using the cartridges are in common use and thus continue to be manufactured and sold for a far longer period than with the image forming apparatus, for example, for more than 10 years. Since the cartridges continue to be manufactured and sold for many years, not a few improvements are made during that period. For example, when a new ink is developed and a cartridge (ink cartridge) accommodating that ink is put on the market, it is often the case that the new cartridge is designed to be able to be used also on old image forming apparatus that were sold in the past so that smooth transition from old cartridges can be made.
It is, however, often difficult to design new cartridges to match all image forming apparatus that were using old cartridges. For example, if the image forming apparatus is an ink jet printer, designing an ink ejection control and a recovery device for preventing possible clogging of ink ejection nozzles in a way that match new cartridges is difficult to achieve. Further, since the new cartridge needs to be able to be installed in the image forming apparatus that were sold in the past, new consumables cannot be changed in their shape from old ones.
As a technology to solve these problems, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-246921 describes a method of storing in the cartridge and using ID (identification) information. That is, the image forming apparatus checks the ID information stored in the cartridge to prevent an inappropriate cartridge from being mounted on the apparatus. Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-225307 discloses a method for storing in the cartridge and using driver information that matches the cartridge. That is, by checking the match or compatibility between the driver information stored in the cartridge and the printer driver in the image forming apparatus, an inappropriate cartridge is prevented from being mounted and used on the image forming apparatus. Further, specifying and using a particular printer driver that match the driver information allows the new cartridge to be used correctly even in the image forming apparatus that were sold in the past.
However, with the method described in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2000-246921, the image forming apparatus that were sold in the past cannot identify ID information of the new cartridge correctly. Further, in the case of the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-225307, the image forming apparatus sold in the past can correctly identify the new cartridge by checking the driver information against the printer driver. This, however, requires a computer (host device) installed with a printer driver to communicate with the image forming apparatus. In recent years, image forming apparatus are available that are directly connected with a digital camera to print images taken by the digital camera without using the computer. Further, multifunction type image forming apparatus are commonly available which has multiple functions, such as a scanner function, a facsimile function and a copy function. The method disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-225307 that requires the use of a computer, however, cannot be applied to these image forming apparatus that do not require a computer.